80% of the world’s population now have mobile phones. There are billions of mobile phones around the world. At the Mobile Ministry Forum, over 100 leaders gathered to discuss what is next in mobile ministry.

There is nothing new to being mobile with your faith. In Exodus, God said build me a mobile tabernacle. All you are doing is changing it from being done with wood, metal, or radio signals and making it pixels. Find how to be led by God. There you will find success.

4 Trends of Digital Religious Practice

1. There is a strong move towards image-based media for devotional work and expression of religious identity. Anyone through Instagram can become a “professional” photographer and express their religious identity.
2. Social media is often an outlet for issue-oriented activism. Community happens when people find others online who share their beliefs and passions.
3. There is a rise of remixing religion and mashing-up theology online. 
4. Most ministries are using mobile technology for faith and liturgy.

Several studies have been done on ministry via apps. Insights include:

• Religious texts are most engaging when wrapped in an audio-visual format. Also apps are most meaningful when they offer features allowing touch interaction with the content.
• College students are motivated to use religious apps by the app’s spiritual impact, encouragement, and use as a “spiritual toolbox.”
• Use of varieties of religious apps may reflect a pluralism of religious identity. 

Ken Cochrum // Indigitous & Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ)

Indigitous is an initiative of Cru that seeks to create digital tools, resources, and strategies tailored to local cultures and languages.

There is a credibility aspect in being able to speak someone’s cultural language. For some, they speak mobile technology. What have you done with your mobile phone over the last 12 hours?

Through a new medium, the stories of the Word of God can captivate us in new ways.

The whole notion that there is “virtual ministry” and then there is “real ministry” no longer exists. It is one and the same. Virtual ministry is very real ministry.

We don’t need to create something and then translate it. We just need to go indigenous from the beginning.

We start with God – His heart, His glory, His promises. We don’t have to build the roads of the internet. We just need to learn how to drive on the roads that others are creating.

One approach doesn’t fit all cultures. Missionaries go where the people are.

 Gary Nelson // Every Tribe Every Nation (ETEN)

Every Tribe Every Nation (ETEN) is an alliance of ministries – the United Bible Societies, Biblica, and Wycliffe – that works together for a common goal.

What does it mean to eradicate Bible poverty?

1. We must eradicate poverty of access. Many still do not have a Bible in their language.
2. We must eradicate poverty of engagement. Many have Bibles but do not read them.

What is needed to accelerate Bible translation has always had barriers of people and finances, but today’s technology is enabling us to do new things.

The digital Bible libraries began as an expression to recognize a fundamental problem. Let’s get people a Bible in the language they know best to help them intimately know God. The digital Bible library digitizes the translations, standardizes their formats, centralizes access to the latest versions, and approves ministries to use these translations.

What should leaders be thinking about?

Keith W. // WEC

1. Make sure your grand planning and strategies are biblical both in means and ends. Sift through what you hear others say as a Berean would. If your strategy requires locking the Bible behind a firewall in order to ensure your ministry is sustainable then you are seeking first all those other things and trusting the Kingdom will follow. Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to go out and make sure they had a sustainability plan. Jesus told His disciples to go out and preach the gospel in every town and, actually, make sure they weren’t sustained by extra purses or clothes. Depend on Him. I encourage you to consider if your ministry is in any way crimping the sharing of God’s Word in order to ensure the provision of all these other things that God promised to those who would seek first His Kingdom.
2. Don’t focus on the technology itself. It is what it affords and what it enables. At the end of the day, mobile technology affords mobility. How do we maximize mobility that stays with us?
3. Focus both on what you can produce on the mobile and what you can enable others to do with the smartphones.

Antoine Wright // Mobile Ministry Magazine

1. Information is not transformation.
2. An application is not a strategy. A service layer is not a strategy. An API is not a strategy. These are roads. If you aren’t following the tenets of your mission and vision, then you will fail. Your mission and vision is where your strategy lies.

Stefan Dell // Cru

1. Are we considering the vision? Is the vision the thing that is driving us?
2. Keep the main thing the main thing.
3. Think about the strategy. So the person reads the Bible and then what next? And what next? And what next?
4. As leaders in the technology space, we need to engage this space.
5. Do not be hesitant to make a decision because you want all the facts. As a leader make a decision now based on the best information you have because technology will not wait for you.

Troy Carl // Faith Comes By Hearing

1. Be careful that you don’t believe your own rhetoric. Don’t assume. Understand. The database doesn’t lie, but we can have misconceptions. What was true 3 years ago isn’t necessarily true today.
2. Look for people that don’t know what they are not supposed to do. These are the people you want on your team.
3. Get a small win under your belt early on. This earns credibility particularly if you aren’t in a particular place of leadership.
4. Bring other people into your success.

Rich Lackey // Arab World Media

1. Consider how we craft our message. Our audience is the customer, and we need to serve the customer. Is what we offer speaking to the needs of our audience.Are we creating content that speaks to our audience or are we creating content for ourselves? Addressing people on an emotional level is much more engaging than cognitive.
2. Think about user experience. Taking big screen content and making it fit on a mobile screen isn’t the right approach. Mobile is a different experience.
3. Think about marketing. Often people think of this a promoting, but actually marketing is about connecting with the audience and engaging with them. In church planting, these are the people of peace. Do not forget to get feedback so that you can refine your marketing.

Troy Carl // Faith Comes By Hearing

Why are internet statistics important? Because they help us make operational decisions.

You want to build for the future not the now. Go to where things are headed.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is backed by companies that benefit from it. They have one initiative – put a cell phone in every person’s hand. In certain regions, Samsung sells a $50 Android phone with a solar panel on back because groups subsidize phones to accelerate growth.

Almost 50% of the world’s mobile users will be in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This also happens to be where many of the top fastest-growing Christian countries are.